


Credo

by quenchycactus



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Drunk Sex, Drunken Confessions, Frottage, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 13:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5745910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quenchycactus/pseuds/quenchycactus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’ve just found religion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Credo

**Author's Note:**

> Taking Bryan’s words of “with a six pack of beer who knows what will happen” and running with it.
> 
> I started this a while ago and found it sitting unfinished on my computer, finished it, and then let it sit some more until I finished _[Famiglia](http://archiveofourown.org/series/307275)_ (which is still missing it's final coda but my lovely beta reader is unavailable atm. It'll be posted soon though).
> 
> This was, as always, edited by the amazing [Felicia](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grkuvus), my hannigram partner in crime.
> 
> Also posted on my [tumblr blog](http://quenchycactus.tumblr.com/post/137497820060/credo)!  
> 

Will hadn’t meant to get drunk.  In fact he shouldn’t be drinking at all, with the situation he’s in.  Everything about this requires a particularly high amount of sobriety despite how much easier it is to stomach without.

Fugitive status aside, there’s the cliff side still hanging over his head.  They haven't discussed it yet, not really.  He thinks Hannibal wasn’t particularly surprised by it, given that stupid, self-destructive acts of heroism are kind of a staple of Will’s person.  But that doesn’t mean Hannibal appreciates the concussion and cracked ribs it gave him.

Will really didn’t mean to drink more than half a glass, didn’t want more than maybe a slight buzz to numb the jumble in his head, but at this very moment, in the middle of the living room floor of some remote getaway house, he is positively _smashed_.

He downs the rest of his glass with a flourish.  This had not been his intention at all when the evening had started, but a lot of things had piled up and the alcohol was right there.

Will watches Hannibal, seated on the couch in front of him, significantly less drunk than he is.  It might have to do with the gaping hole shot through his abdomen.  Or the mild head injury.  Both valid reasons, but thinking back, Will can’t remember ever seeing Hannibal intoxicated, and it makes sense.  The whole loss of control thing.  It’s something he would hate.  Drunkenness is not classy, it’s not polished and polite, and it’s just not something Will can picture Hannibal succumbing to.

Wine with dinner.  A casual sip of liquor, here and there, but nothing more than that.

Will glances at the almost empty bottle on the coffee table, and the extremely empty one standing beside it, and acknowledges sluggishly that he is much more responsible for that than Hannibal is.  But that’s not important.

What _is_ important is that he currently cares a lot less about the pain in his cheek, his shoulder, his _leg_.  He’d broken it, in the fall.

_Whose fault is that,_ he reminds himself, and glares down at the makeshift cast.

“Should I be doing this with all the shit I’m on?” Will’s words slur a bit, and plucks his glass from the table to wiggle it in Hannibal’s direction.  It’d occurred to him, just now, that mixing most pain meds with alcohol is an extremely poor decision.

“I declined to give you your next dose a few hours ago when you suggested wine after dinner.”

So that’s why he’s in more pain than usual.  Will lays back on the carpet.  It’s hard and ornate and fringed and feels like something that would be a bitch to get clean if anything spilled on it.  He’s not sure why this escape house is so nicely furnished.  It’s not like anyone is supposed to be living here for any extended period of time.

He places a hand on his stomach, running a finger over his scar through his shirt.  He can feel Hannibal’s eyes on him.  They’re silent again, for a while, until something in Will’s gut starts to bubble, insistent and vital.

Will tries to get his thoughts in order. “Sometimes-” he’s still slurring.  For a brief moment he wishes he weren’t so drunk.  But if he weren’t, he probably wouldn’t be saying what he’s about to say.  The words would lodge in his throat as always.  They’re sticky, like cooling tar solidifying his vocal chords.

He inhales deeply, exhales and struggles to sit up.  Hannibal is still sitting on the couch, staring at him with an unreadable expression, but something very far down in his eyes radiates with an almost tactile intensity.

“Sometimes,” he starts again, wavering slightly but more clear than before, “I wonder what I would have done, if you hadn’t survived.  If you hadn’t survived and I did.”

Hannibal’s head tilts minutely.  Or maybe it doesn’t.  Will’s having a bit of trouble seeing steadily.  He _does_ see Hannibal’s mouth open to respond, but Will steamrolls onward on top of him anyway.

“And then, and _then_.  I always realize I wouldn’t have.”

Whatever look Hannibal had been giving him before sours and disappears, and he shakes his head.  Clearly, he’d been expecting some larger revelation.

“Yes, I was the one to drag you out of the ocean.”

Will stares at him.  He has to elaborate but he can feel the words starting to freeze.  He reaches for the last of the bottle, he needs to get them out of his throat before they burn a hole there.  Hannibal reaches the bottle first, stands over him with a frown, intensity gone and face like stone.

“I believe you’ve had enough.”

Will glares up at him, reaches pitifully.  “I’m _fine_.  And that wasn’t what I meant.”

Hannibal gives him a long suffering look, patience finally starting to wane.  “What did you mean?”

“I’m ignoring all of that, first off.  This is assuming I somehow managed to survive on my own without your freakish ability to live through literally anything.”

Hannibal raises an eyebrow and Will collapses back onto the rug, gesturing vaguely above him with his hands.  The room had started to spin slightly.

“The logical thing to do would be to go back to _Jack_.”  Will giggles at the mention of his name, ever so slightly.  “It’d be the only choice really.”

He raises his head off the floor to look at Hannibal, still standing by the coffee table, holding the bottle and leaning to the left.  His side must be hurting.

“I’d be a hero, you know.”

Hannibal says nothing, and Will lets his head thunk back down, smiling a bit.

“Maybe Freddie Lounds would say something nice about me for once.  Can’t imagine what she’s saying now.  We should look it up.  Can we?  I’m really curious.  It’s probably really funny.  Also really insulting.  Why haven’t we done that yet?”

He’s getting off topic.   _Focus_.  “Anyway, so yeah.  I’d go back to Jack.  I’d go back to Molly, and Wally, and my dogs.  But,” he stops again, breathing deep.  He needs to get this right.  Hannibal needs to _understand_.

“I’d be living.  But I wouldn’t be _alive_.   _You_ make me alive.  If you had died, anything left in me that’s worth sticking around for would’ve been ripped out ‘cause it’s tied to you.  I’d basically be a husk.  I’d probably survive a year like that before going off the deep end.”

A pause, a huff of a laugh.  The room had grown thick with the kind of stillness that swallows all sounds. Will raises his voice, to stay above its surface.

“That was a pun, wasn’t it?  A pretty bad one too.  Sorry for that.  Anyway, that’s what I meant.  That’s why I pulled us both off.  Part of it was, you weren’t allowed to live, and I wasn’t either.  But mostly it was because of the other thing.  I needed an ending and it had to have you in it.

“‘Can’t live with him, can’t live without him.’” Will frames the words with air-quotes and let his arms drop spread-eagle. “Bedelia did know what she was talking about whether I wanted to admit it or not.”

Hannibal steps over to him, and there’s emotion in his face threatening to overflow, to flood him and drown them both.  “Will you allow me life, now?  Do you still need your ending?”

His questions are quiet and filled to the brim and barely hold back the deluge. There's something beneath them that echoes Will’s words.

_I'm only alive if you let me._

Will smiles up at him, reaches for him, responds in his same loud tone.  He wants the shadows to hear him.  “I thought this was my ending.”

Hannibal hauls him off the floor, body stiffening with pain but also with something else.  He pulls Will close to him, and Will puts his face in curve between his neck and shoulder, balancing on one leg.  He hums. Hannibal knits his fingers through the hair at Will’s neck and breathes deeply.

Will plays with the collar of Hannibal’s sweater. He feels Hannibal’s throat work around a swallow and his pulse run strong and hot. Will’s surrounded by heat. He wants to be engulfed by it.

He moves without thinking and presses a slow kiss to the skin just under Hannibal’s ear and hears his breath catch in response. It sparks something hungry in Will and he realizes he needs this.

Since the fall any physical contact between them has been fairly detached. Clinical. There was something under it, something intimate, but Will never thought about pushing it further. Or maybe he did, but shoved it away so quickly the desire had no room to properly grow.  But whatever reasons he’d had for holding back, he doubts any of them are actually good enough to warrant stopping, even if he were sober.

So he doesn't.

Part of him thinks of how strange this is, that he wants this.  That he wants any of this.  Then he thinks how it’s not strange at all.

Hannibal’s hands clutch tighter at his waist as Will presses more kisses over his neck.

“ _Will-_ ”

Hannibal’s voice holds some kind of faint desperation.

Will hums again, tries to nudge Hannibal in the direction of the couch, but he’s unsteady and Hannibal catches him before he topples sideways, and the moment snaps.

“You should sleep.  I’m not sure where you think this could go in the condition you’re in.”  There’s something brittle in Hannibal’s tone now, like he’s decided he's not sure he believes any of this.  Not that Will is lying, exactly, just that he doesn’t really mean it, and plans to take it back in the morning and pull away like he’s been doing since they got to this house.

Will hadn’t _meant_ to, not really.  He just had a lot of conflicting thoughts that all collapsed in on him, fortifying themselves around him like large stones in an old wall.  Crumbling, but still strong and immobile.  He’d wanted Hannibal as close to him as possible at the same time he wanted Hannibal far far away, so Will could make sense of whatever this is he’s gotten himself into.

He stares at Hannibal, wondering how they’ll tie everything back together with the ends so frayed.  He deliberately lets go of Hannibal’s arms to let himself fall to the couch.  He lands with a grunt of pain and a smile, Hannibal stumbling after him, the unexpected entirety of Will’s weight throwing him off balance.

He’ll try to tie a few knots tonight, if Hannibal lets him, and maybe they’ll be enough to hold until morning.  Maybe then they’ll tie a few more and the whole world will stop unravelling around them, like it’s done since they’ve met.  Or at least, they’ll stop unravelling.  The rest of the world can go to shit as far as Will’s concerned, as long as they stay twined together.

Will hooks fingers into the hem of Hannibal’s sweater and rubs his cheek on his shoulder.  Hannibal sighs.

“You’re very drunk, Will.”

“I’m not drunk enough that I don’t know what I’m doing.  I’m just drunk enough to stop agonizing over what I want.  And right now, what I want is this.”

“What you want right now will most likely not match with what you will want tomorrow.”

“ _Yes_ it _will_.  I’m done hiding from you.  I don’t want to anymore.”

Will pushes Hannibal down and Hannibal lets him.  Will crawls over him as best he can and cages his head with his hands.

“Pretty sure we survived for a reason and that reason wasn’t to keep avoiding each other.”

Will rests his forehead on Hannibal’s and noses along his temple and cheek.  Hannibal closes his eyes and twines his hands into Will’s shirt, pulling tightly at the fabric and digging his nails into the small of his back.

“You need to stop hiding too.”

Will kisses him then, light and sweet.  He smiles through it.

“I could never truly hide from you, could I?”  Hannibal’s voice is thick and deep and rough with emotion.

Will doesn’t answer, just holds the sides of his face and lets his eyes slip closed.  He kisses him again, deeper this time, tonguing at the seam of Hannibal’s lips and feels a low moan in Hannibal’s throat.  Will can feel them both getting hard, and he rolls his hips, gasping at the contact.  The nails in his back dig deeper.

He rocks forward languidly, kisses turning open mouthed and staccato, until their lips barely touch and they’re panting into each other’s mouths with small hot puffs of air.  Will pulls back to look at Hannibal’s hooded, wild eyes before Hannibal moves his head down to bite at Will’s neck.  His hands slip under the hem of Will’s shirt and his nails bite into the skin of his shoulder blades.

Will bites down a moan as Hannibal buries his face against his collarbone, bucks his hips up to meet Will’s.  It’s an awkward angle, his hands fumble from the alcohol, and his leg is a deep shooting pain, but he couldn’t care any less about it.  His other leg could break and Will isn’t sure he would notice.  Hannibal’s breath is on his neck and Will can feel his heartbeat through his shirt.  He’s surrounded, and his universe is only made of that heart and that breath.

Hannibal’s hands touch him like they want to pull him apart in some sort of worship, like he’s beyond all comprehension.  Like he’s religion.  His fingerprints sink into Will’s bones and mark him and it’s not enough and it’s too much all at once.

Will cries out at he comes, his elbows give out and he collapses, shuddering.  He feels Hannibal’s hips stutter and his arms hold Will tighter, closer, as they fall down from the high.  Will wishes he could sink into the chest below him and live there.

In a way he knows he already has.

Fingers begin to card through his hair, and he falls asleep with Hannibal’s name on his lips like it’s the only word he’s ever been meant to speak.  There’s a warmth in his heart and it burns him up from the inside out.


End file.
